Second auxiliary ligand induced two coppor-based coordination polymers and urease inhibition activity

Abstract

Urease may rapidly hydrolyze urea, causing a significant amount of ammonia to be released and decreasing the efficacy of urea fertilizers. However, urease inhibitors (UIs) can inhibit the interaction between urease and urea so that ammonium nitrogen can be absorbed by crops for a long time. In this paper, we developed and fabricated two Cu-based coordination polymers (Cu-CPs) to function as UIs by combining two aromatic carboxylic acids and a bis-pyridine-bis-amide ligand, which demonstrate outstanding urease inhibitory efficacy. Cu-CP-1 exhibits a pronounced inhibitory effect on the inhibitory activity of jack bean urease while the semi-inhibitory concentration (IC50) value was 0.74 ± 0.01 μM, whereas the IC50 value of Cu-CP-2 was 4.77 ± 0.51 μM. Furthermore, inhibitory activity against urease, kinetic, molecular docking, and comparisons of the title Cu-CPs and other complex-based materials have been comprehensively investigated. More importantly, the oxygen atoms of μ2-OH and –COO play important roles in urease inhibition activity. The structure–function relationship were further discussed which indicates that Cu-CPs can be used as a kind of UIs.